Boarding schools -- England -- Fiction; Boys -- Fiction
The pig-table, it may be mentioned, was a separate table in the
dining-room without chairs, where boys detected in swinish habits had to
take their meals standing for the period of their sentence. But poor
Bags’s cup was not full yet, for the Head’s eagle eye fell on David’s
inky mouth.
“I infer that the ink on Blaize’s lips was made by this weapon,” he
said. “That is so? Then you will now beg Blaize’s pardon, and as soon as
the Catechism and Bible-class is over, you will fetch a basin of water
and bathe Blaize’s mouth with your own sponge, until it is pronounced
clean by your matron. The hour for writing home is up. Sign your names,
and direct your envelopes. Catechism!”
Now the Catechism-class had already been held, and the marks for it had
been put down in the mottled-covered book which lay on Mr. Dutton’s
desk. But to suggest or hint this was not less inconceivable than to
propose playing leap-frog. The more imaginative saw that there might be
fresh trouble when Catechism marks were put down, and it was found that
Mr. Dutton had already entered them in his neat small handwriting, but
the idea of venturing to correct the Head when he was in this
brimstone-mood was merely unthinkable. David, indeed, the boldest of
them all, and, at the moment, with something of the halo of martyrdom
about him, wondered what would happen if he did so, but quailed before
the possible result.
So Catechism began again, and for a little all went smoothly. The Head,
of course, knew that among small boys at school Christian names are held
to be effeminate and disgraceful things, and so, omitting the first
question, asked Stone, the head-boy, who had given him his name, and
Stone knew. Ferrers also knew what his godfathers and godmothers then
did for him, and David expressed himself accurately as bound to believe
and to do what they had promised for him. The Commandments went
smoothly, but trouble began when the boys had to explain what they
chiefly learned from those Commandments. Any meaning that they might
have possessed, any effort to attach rational ideas to them, was
overshadowed by the fact that, primarily, this was a lesson that should
have been acquired by heart in order to recite it faultlessly to that
awe-inspiring presence that frowned at Mr. Dutton’s desk. His duty
towards his neighbour had already baffled David that afternoon, but for
the moment, having recited the eighth Commandment, his turn was passed,
and, troubles never coming singly, Bags was faced with this abstruse
question. The first sentences went rightly enough, but then he began to
falter.
“To honour and obey the King and all that are put in authority under
her——”
“Her?” asked the Head.
Bags’s Prayer-book, a comparatively ancient one, given him at his
christening by a godmother, was a Queen’s Prayer-book.
“Queen, and all that are put in authority under her,” he quavered,
getting confused.
“Next,” said the Head.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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